Selva Almada: “My writing is influenced by what I hear, what I see in the street, but also by memories and reading”

Interview by Lucía Iglesias Kuntz
UNESCO

You often call yourself a provincial author. Why is this important to you?

In the early 2000s, I had a blog called ‘A provincial girl’. It was also the title I gave to one of my first books, a collection of autobiographical stories. I was 30, I had just arrived in Buenos Aires, and in it I recounted the life of a provincial girl who has moved to the capital. Today, many years later, I still feel a very strong sense of belonging to what we call the ‘interior’ here in Argentina, and I define myself as a provincial writer, attached not only to the province where I grew up, Entre Ríos, on the border with Uruguay, but to the whole territory. In my work, both as a writer and in the projects I’m involved in, I try to refute the idea that literature in Argentina doesn’t exist outside the capital.

This desire to showcase literature produced throughout the country is also reflected in the choice of authors available in the bookshop you own in Buenos Aires.

Yes, I've called it ‘Salvaje Federal’ [Federal Savage]. It's an online bookshop, but we also have a physical space in the Almagro district of Buenos Aires. We inaugurated it at the end of 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is why it existed online first. It features works that don't usually circulate outside the provinces where they're published. The project gradually gained momentum, and two years ago we organized our first festival in the city of Rosario, some 300 kilometers north of Buenos Aires, and we plan to launch one in Neuquén, in Patagonia. The idea consists of a travelling festival that would take place every year or two in a different region of Argentina. We're also working on a number of projects, including an artists' residency, always with a view to showcasing Argentine literature from all over the country.

What are your sources of inspiration, the themes that are closest to your heart?

I don't like to talk about ‘themes’ in literature. We don't write about themes, but starting from little scenes, situations, atmospheres or characters that we find suggestive, at least as far as I'm concerned. These triggers can emerge from what someone tells me, what I hear, what I see in the street that catches my attention, but also from memories or something I read. Certain subjects recur in the plots of my stories and novels: broken or decaying family relationships, sexist culture, underground violence, the world of physical labour, alcoholism, religion and a set of beliefs specific to the region of Argentina where I grew up.

In 2024, you were a finalist for the very prestigious Booker Prize for your latest novel No es un río [Not a River]. What is it about? Are literary awards important to you?

The plot of No es un río is quite simple: two friends take their deceased friend's teenage son fishing and catch a giant manta ray for sport, only to throw the dead creature back into the water. This leads to a series of conflicts with the locals, who have an almost sacred relationship with their environment. This is a novel in which the world of the living and the world of the dead intertwine and merge, and where unsettled accounts between the living and the ghosts resurface. Being nominated for the Booker Prize was very important for me; it's a very prestigious international prize that opens doors for nominated books, particularly for translation.

You've taken part in literary workshops. Did they play a role in your writing process?

I actually started writing on my own, but with a group of friends who also wrote, and we would get together to read, correct and critique each other... It was a sort of spontaneous workshop. Then, in 1999, when I moved to Buenos Aires, I started attending the workshops of the novelist and poet Alberto Laiseca, and I took part in them for seventeen years, until his death in 2016. They brought me a lot: Laiseca helped me find my voice, he was my guide in writing. Besides what I learned in his workshops, he was for me a teacher in the full sense of the word.

You've run workshops yourself.

For ten years, workshops were part of my daily activities. This is no longer true, except very sporadically. In fact, the figure of Alberto Laiseca was so important to me that I never felt like a teacher, but rather a workshop coordinator. I was there to accompany, to share with others the problems the writing process can pose, its discoveries... From my point of view, it's obviously not necessary to attend workshops to be a writer, but they are useful spaces for raising the questions we always ask ourselves about our own writing.

You declare yourself a feminist. What does that mean in Argentina today?

True, I do feel feminist. Today, as in the past, being a feminist in our Latin American countries, which are so steeped in a sexist culture, still means having to fight, take to the streets and constantly demand our rights. We have to be permanently on alert, always ready to take to the streets to demand something and claim a right we haven't yet obtained.

Your childhood was spent under the military dictatorship. What role does this chapter in Argentina's history play in your life and work?

Yes, I was born in 1973 so I was three years old when the dictatorship was established. I grew up in a small town where people didn't talk much, and where school was under military control, as in the rest of the country. It was something under the surface: we knew that things were happening, that there was a darkness, but I was small and in my family, the subject didn’t come up. When democracy returned, news suddenly flooded into my life: democracy with the first president, Raúl Alfonsín, the trial of the members of the Military Junta, the Nunca más [Never Again] report documenting the repression that plagued the country during the dictatorship... In fact, this isn’t represented very much in my books. My work explores a later historical period, the 1990s. Many Argentinian authors have chosen to focus on the dark years of the dictatorship in their fiction, but I haven’t.

When and where do you write?

Mostly at home. I have an office in a room with a large window overlooking a garden. It's the part of the house that gets the most natural light, which is why I chose it. To tell the truth, I'm rather a creature of habit. I'm not one of those writers who can write anywhere, in any medium, in any café... I need to feel peaceful at home.

You often say you don't like to travel. Why?

My work involves a lot of travel, but I don't really have a taste for it. I'll never get used to it. I have to, as part of my job as a writer, mostly to support the distribution and promotion of my books, but if I had the choice, I'd be happy not to.

Are you concerned about the invasion of artificial intelligence in literary creation?

It's an issue that doesn't interest me much. To be honest, I've never felt inclined to learn more about the subject. Certainly, artificial intelligence can write a novel, but I don't think it could ever surpass the writing of a human being, even of a bad writer. No computer programme, no machine, will ever be able to rival what is uniquely ours: humanity.

You've been involved in writing film scripts. Since you're used to working alone, how do you adapt to this more collective undertaking?

I worked with Argentine director Maximiliano Schonfeld on the screenplay for the film Jesús López, released in 2021, but I had no part in the filming. We found a way of working together: I would write the most narrative parts, which he would then adapt to the screenplay format, and then we would spend a long time working together on the dialogue. I have fond memories of the experience, but I feel I'm primarily a writer of stories and novels.

Are you in contact with other Argentine or Latin American writers of your generation?

Yes, I am, fortunately! Especially with women writers, in fact: we read each other's work, we meet at festivals and fairs, and we're very close friends. Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, here in Argentina, but I'm also very fond of Fernanda Melchor from Mexico, and Liliana Colanzi, whom I met at a fair in Bolivia, Alejandra Costamagna and Nona Fernández in Chile... All are writer friends whose work I appreciate.